More About Mrs May

Mrs Edith Buttercup May has been a school teacher all her life. She couldn’t imagine doing anything else. In fact she has been teaching for so long that she has seen her young pupils grow up and have children of their own.

Ask anyone, and they would describe Mrs May (and even the adults call her Mrs May), as caring and patient. Yet they would also contend that she has a no-nonsense presence about her.
“Teachers must be careful at all times to remain tepid.” She was known to say. “They must be warm with their affections, yet cold in their expectations. A child must not only feel valued, they must learn.”

Despite Mrs May’s experience with teaching, she often spends her holidays refining her curriculum and reading up on new teaching ideas.
“A teacher must continue learning with the same drive that she expects her own students to display,” she would generally advise new teachers. And learn she does…

At the beginning of her teaching career, Mrs May felt that the education of each student fell entirely on her shoulders – that the sum of a child’s education began at 8.45am and ended at 4.00pm each weekday. Now, she does everything she can to give each parent a starring role. These days she feels just as much a teacher to parents as she is to her students.

Perhaps though, the only thing that Mrs May has never changed, is her view on homework.
“Start them young, and they will see homework as part of their regular routine.”
Unfortunately she always has one or two students who struggle to establish this routine.
“And that’s okay.” Mrs May has said more than once. “Gentle perseverance, more than anything else, is a student’s greatest friend.”